


Believe Me, I Love You (But Not in That Way)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Little Women (2019), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Friendship, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Josephine March, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Love, though she doesn't fully understand that's what she is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: There are points, Jo analogizes, like spots on a map, that they could go to, she and her Teddy— they could explore, claim all that they could find as their own— but they don’t. There’s a reason, and she knows this, knew this, was subconsciously aware all along, even when she was young, more playful, agile, less bruised inside and out.
Relationships: Theodore Laurence & Josephine March
Comments: 18
Kudos: 17





	Believe Me, I Love You (But Not in That Way)

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else torn between shipping Jo and Laurie yet also knowing that Jo is clearly a lesbian and only loves him as a friend, so close and familiar to her that he's like family? No? Just me?  
> Their dynamic is so beautiful that it's so easy to want for more between them, but in the same breath, it's such a refreshing chance of pace to see them not need more. They're perfect together as friends, devoted lifelong companions, with truly deep enough love that doesn't need to include romance to be validated and real. 
> 
> Title comes from the song "Not in That Way" by Sam Smith.

Laurie is beautiful and Jo loves him for it.

She loves him. The end. That’s all there is to it. 

That’s all there _should_ be to it, because she thinks of him by her side until old age, his calloused hand in hers as the youthful games they play continue on into adulthood and beyond— but something’s not quite right in this fantasy, because in both her mind and in reality, his hand never stays long in her grasp. Their fingers are never intertwined, never quite intimate enough to get past anything that they do now: simple, platonic hand holding, tender brushes of fingers across bruises, grazes over ribcages and hipbones when dancing through wildflower fields and tripping over oak roots, looking out for one another, holding each other up. Jo knows that their touches should be more. She should incite more. She should want more.

Yet to go any further would be strange. Not wrong, but just...not fit for them. Not for her, Jo and Laurie, Laurie and Jo. Her and her Teddy.

There are points, she analogizes, like spots on a map, that they could go to— they could explore, claim all that they could find as their own— but they don’t. There’s a reason, and she knows this,  _ knew  _ this, was subconsciously aware all along, even when she was young, more playful, agile, less bruised inside and out. 

These facts exist in the same vein as the way she thinks about his lips— Laurie’s full, rounded, sassy mouth, shaped almost like a heart; he always spills truths and humor and wears a grin that makes her feel warm inside, complete, right, fully aligned in a way that she’s meant to be. 

But nothing more. Jo doesn’t want Laurie’s lips anywhere near her own. Maybe on her cheek, that might be alright, he’s done that before and she didn’t mind it. Maybe a ghost of his grin by her ear would be acceptable, especially when she’d finish the last sentence of a paragraph, dot the period and inhale deep, right hand shaking as she ponders and finalizes. His lips could brush against her temple, maybe even dip down to the wide space where her neck meets her chest. Laurie could observe her from there, rest his head on the length of her shoulder and observe her with his never-judging eyes. Jo thinks she’d let that happen. She thinks she’d like that to happen. It’s happened before, anyways, and it’s never been anything more than just what it was. Her and her Teddy being themselves, unabashed and without second thoughts.

What Jo has come to realize is that whenever she imagines them together, she’s writing. Always writing. Not about Laurie or for Laurie but for herself— no, actually, that’s not right— she’s writing for something deeper than herself. Something more demanding, intrinsic, natural, something she doesn’t even quite have a name for. She needs to write, needs to spill words onto a page and speak whatever her mind has pent up and now begged her to release. It’s just as much of a surprise to her to let go of it as it is for anyone else to read it and see what she has in store. 

_ You’re always a secret, Jo March,  _ people would say, and Jo knows what that means. Elusive. Unconventional. Provocative in ways that aren’t expected of ladies like her. She’s never been much of a lady, anyway.

Her writing, though— Jo wants Laurie to read it, to be the first one to read it every single time. He’s always been by her side, supportive and simple and easy and enough. That feels like enough for her. He feels like enough.

She doesn’t think she’ll be enough for him, though, not in this way.

_ You’re different, Jo March,  _ people would say, sometimes approving, usually judging.

And Jo knows what people think of when the word love comes to mind, and it’s not this. Not what she imagines with Teddy. This fantasy doesn’t feel like love, not the kind that perfect, pretty girls like Meg dreamt of for so long and were lucky enough to find in perfect, pretty gentlemen like John Brooke. No, for Jo, this feels more like family, like home, like what she’s always had, what she’s always known. (When she closes her eyes and falls into a dark slumber, her dreams of lust are filled with bodies that look nothing like Laurie’s. Soft curves, no sharpness, pink skin and smooth silence. She wakes in a sweat, a throbbing between her legs, and she knows what this means. 

_ Don’t act like such a boy, Jo March,  _ people would say, and maybe she did because the roles were always a bit reversed in her mind, jumbled up and never rearranged correctly. She’s always wanted what she’s not supposed to have. Always said what other girls don’t say, always wanted what other girls don’t even dare to think about.)

Regardless. If Jo is honest, she never really imagined a world where Laurie wouldn’t be there by her side, in every way that she could ever want and need. 

Jo sees a life where she’d rest on the scratched, wilting sofa beside Laurie, curled up in the way they’d always do, pressed against his side while reading a book or jotting down an idea, one that comes to her fleeting and fast and urgent and pleading to be brought to life through language as soon as she conjured it up. She knows he’d watch over her shoulder, amused and mesmerized at her spontaneity, its familiarity, but he’d give her space if she asked for it, give her all the space in the world. She knows if she asked him to never see her again, he would, if she really wanted it. She’d never want that, though. Not in a million moons. 

But still, maybe they’ll have to be apart. Maybe the kind of life she craves isn’t the kind that he can give her, or even wants to give. It’s not all about need, after all, sometimes people just don’t want to do something, and who is Jo to fault them for it? And the truth of the matter is— she tells herself it alone, aloud at midnight, with no one around to judge her— that she doesn’t want him in the way that she probably should, so it’s okay if he doesn’t want to settle. They’ll have each other regardless, in some way, in the way that they both know best. Infinite are they, Laurie and Jo, Jo and Laurie, without a doubt in her mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr [here](https://sweeterthankarma.tumblr.com/).


End file.
